Memes for the working class
Plus interesting reading on unions, and a new song on Country for Commies
Words From John
Hello Hollerans!
I’ve been over here cranking out pro-union memes. Not just because it’s fun to do, but because memes travel farther and faster than almost any form of political communication. Enough, at least, to elicit attention from the likes of the Oxford Political Review.
Look no further than U.S. Senate hopeful John Fetterman’s campaign to confirm the power of the almighty internet meme.
But I’d like your feedback. I see the next few months of The Holler falling into three general buckets: pro-union video memes, at least one weekly short informational video (like normal), and live regional labor event coverage. Please use the button below to tell me what you think!
And if you want this kind of media to exist, please support it with a $5/mo subscription.
Viewer-Supported Short Videos
One simple step to becoming much much hotter: join a union
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
About this:
I’ve noticed a trend on my TikTok page. Videos that are specifically about unions will have excellent early performance metrics only to quickly top off at a couple of thousand views. That’s the case with this video. Then I posted it on Reddit where it has over 183,000 views and nearly 3,000 upvotes.
Fit me with a tin-foil hat, but I’ve noticed this trend of videos performing well early than hitting a wall with almost anything related to the Amazon Labor Union. Other creators are taking notice too.
ANYWAY! From the awesome union merchandise, the money in the bank… everything about you as a person becomes more attractive when you join a union. I don’t make the rules.
More reading about union pay:
They find, first, that unionization throughout one’s career is associated with a $1.3 million mean increase in lifetime earnings, larger than the average gains from completing college. Second, the lifetime earnings gains are channeled entirely through higher hourly wages and occur despite earlier-than-average retirement for persistently unionized men. Third, the union wage premium is not constant throughout a worker’s career; instead it increases with more years of union membership. The cumulative advantages of union membership for workers’ economic well-being are far greater than point-in-time estimates suggest.
When the company makes bank and pays you in pizza
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
About this:
The humble pizza party has become shorthand for the most blatant failures of global capitalism where record profits at large companies are compensated with “reasonable” pizza parties. If this is your experience in the workplace, a union might be a good fit for you!
This is another video that had modest viewership on TikTok, yet nearly 100,000 views and more than 2,400 upvotes on Reddit.
More reading:
Profits are ‘soaring’ for large retailers—but frontline workers are barely earning more
Some of the least generous companies had the largest profits: Amazon and Walmart increased profits by of 53% and 45%, respectively, compared to last year. Their workers received an extra $0.95 per hour (Amazon) and $0.63 per hour (Walmart) since March. That is a 6% increase.
Financial complexity is deliberate and not good
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
About this:
I work at a dive bar that, at one time, would cash paychecks right at the bar. That was back when manufacturing drove our economy before the finance industry took over, and deliberate complexity was baked into the equation deliberately to avoid regulation.
This video doesn’t specifically mention unions and did well on TikTok with 46,000 views and another 53,000 views on Reddit. There are videos on TikTok about unions that do well, but the trend is noticeable.
More reading on this:
The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue. The stunning rise, fall, and rescue of Wall Street in the bubble-and-bailout era was the coming-out party for the network of looters who sit at the nexus of American political and economic power. The grifter class—made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power for a generation, transferring wealth upward through increasingly complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers. The crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they’ve hijacked America’s political and economic life.
A third of your life to make someone else rich
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
A third or more of your one and only life will be spent working. And the gap between what you’re paid versus the value you produce is growing every year.
More reading:
Country for Commies: The Pill, Loretta Lynn
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Video Transcript:
Rest in peace Loretta Lynn. This is the perfect time to add Loretta to our Country for Commies playlist we're building in my bio.
We could start out with a massive hit Coal Miner's Daughter, but that would be too easy. So the fifth song on Country for Commies is The Pill. I don't have a format figured out for these videos just yet, so this one is going to be quick and dirty.
Loretta Lynn knows the struggle of the working class because she lived it - in her bones, impossible to deny, it shows up in her songs because she can't do otherwise, lived that life.
Her song The Pill came out in 1975, which is unique because the same cultural wars that are consuming us today were raging back then too. Every lyric in The Pill is a thorough trashing of the patriarchy.
You wined me and dined me
When I was your girl
Promised if I'd be your wife
You'd show me the world
But all I've seen of this old world
Is a bed and a doctor bill
I'm tearin' down your brooder house
'Cause now I've got the pill
It's the kind of thing that you would expect to come from on high, from academia. And here's Loretta Lynn country-fried and bonafide as anybody out there, cheerleading a thorough rearranging of power dynamics in society with country charm.
It's awesome. And it is the fifth song on Country for Commies. So find that in the bio, comment on what's next, and then enjoy Loretta. Rest in peace.